A poem, by Marianne Moore

This institution,perhaps one should say enterpriseout of respect for whichone says one need not change one’s mindabout a thing one has believed in,requiring public promisesof one’s intentionto fulfill a private obligation:I wonder what Adam and Evethink of it by this time,this firegilt steelalive with goldenness;how bright it shows —“of circular traditions and impostures,committing many spoils,”requiring all one’s criminal ingenuityto avoid!Psychology which explains everythingexplains nothingand we are still in doubt.Eve: beautiful woman —I have seen herwhen she was so handsomeshe gave me a start,able to write simultaneouslyin three languages —English, German and Frenchand talk in the meantime;equally positive in demanding a commotionand in stipulating quiet:“I should like to be alone;”to which the visitor replies,“I should like to be alone;why not be alone together?”Below the incandescent starsbelow the incandescent fruit,the strange experience of beauty;its existence is too much;it tears one to piecesand each fresh wave of consciousnessis poison.“See her, see her in this common world,”the central flawin that first crystal-fine experiment,this amalgamation which can never be morethan an interesting possibility,describing itas “that strange paradiseunlike flesh, gold, or stately buildings,the choicest piece of my life:the heart risingin its estate of peaceas a boat riseswith the rising of the water;”constrained in speaking of the serpent —that shed snakeskin in the history of politenessnot to be returned to again —that invaluable accidentexonerating Adam.And he has beauty also;it’s distressing — the O thouto whom, from whom,without whom nothing — Adam;“something feline,something colubrine” — how true!a crouching mythological monsterin that Persian miniature of emerald mines,raw silk — ivory white, snow white,oyster white and six others —that paddock full of leopards and giraffes —long lemonyellow bodiessown with trapezoids of blue.Alive with words,vibrating like a cymbaltouched before it has been struck,he has prophesied correctly —the industrious waterfall,“the speedy streamwhich violently bears all before it,at one time silent as the airand now as powerful as the wind.”“Treading chasms on the uncertain footing of a spear,”forgetting that there is in womana quality of mindwhich is an instinctive manifestationis unsafe,he goes on speakingin a formal, customary strainof “past states,” the present state,seals, promises, the evil one suffered,the good one enjoys,hell, heaven,everything convenientto promote one’s joy.”There is in him a state of mindby force of which,perceiving what it was notintended that he should,“he experiences a solemn joyin seeing that he has become an idol.”Plagued by the nightingalein the new leaves,with its silence —not its silence but its silences,he says of it:“It clothes me with a shirt of fire.”“He dares not clap his handsto make it go onlest it should fly off;if he does nothing, it will sleep;if he cries out, it will not understand.”Unnerved by the nightingaleand dazzled by the apple,impelled by “the illusion of a fireeffectual to extinguish fire,”compared with whichthe shining of the earthis but deformity — a fire“as high as deep as bright as broadas long as life itself,”he stumbles over marriage,“a very trivial object indeed”to have destroyed the attitudein which he stood —the ease of the philosopherunfathered by a woman.Unhelpful Hymen!“a kind of overgrown cupid”reduced to insignificanceby the mechanical advertisingparading as involuntary comment,by that experiment of Adam’swith ways out but no way in —the ritual of marriage,augmenting all its lavishness;its fiddle-head ferns,lotus flowers, opuntias, white dromedaries,its hippopotamus —nose and mouth combinedin one magnificent hopper,“the crested screamer —that huge bird almost a lizard,”its snake and the potent apple.He tells usthat “for lovethat will gaze an eagle blind,that is like a Herculesclimbing the treesin the garden of the Hesperides,from forty-five to seventyis the best age,”commending itas a fine art, as an experiment,a duty or as merely recreation.One must not call him ruffiannor friction a calamity —the fight to be affectionate:“no truth can be fully knownuntil it has been triedby the tooth of disputation.”The blue panther with black eyes,the basalt panther with blue eyes,entirely graceful —one must give them the path —the black obsidian Dianawho “darkeneth her countenanceas a bear doth,causing her husband to sigh,”the spiked handthat has an affection for oneand proves it to the bone,impatient to assure youthat impatience is the mark of independencenot of bondage.“Married people often look that way” —“seldom and cold, up and down,mixed and malarialwith a good day and bad.”“When do we feed?”We occidentals are so unemotional,we quarrel as we feed;one’s self is quite lost,the irony preservedin “the Ahasuerus tкte а tкte banquet”with its “good monster, lead the way,”with little laughterand munificence of humorin that quixotic atmosphere of franknessin which “Four o’clock does not existbut at five o’clockthe ladies in their imperious humilityare ready to receive you”;in which experience atteststhat men have powerand sometimes one is made to feel it.He says, “what monarch would not blushto have a wifewith hair like a shaving-brush?The fact of womanis not `the sound of the flutebut every poison.'”She says, “`Men are monopolistsof stars, garters, buttonsand other shining baubles’ —unfit to be the guardiansof another person’s happiness.”He says, “These mummiesmust be handled carefully —`the crumbs from a lion’s meal,a couple of shins and the bit of an ear’;turn to the letter Mand you will findthat `a wife is a coffin,’that severe objectwith the pleasing geometrystipulating space and not people,refusing to be buriedand uniquely disappointing,revengefully wrought in the attitudeof an adoring childto a distinguished parent.”She says, “This butterfly,this waterfly, this nomadthat has `proposedto settle on my hand for life.’ —What can one do with it?There must have been more timein Shakespeare’s dayto sit and watch a play.You know so many artists are fools.”He says, “You know so many foolswho are not artists.”The fact forgotthat “some have merely rightswhile some have obligations,”he loves himself so much,he can permit himselfno rival in that love.She loves herself so much,she cannot see herself enough —a statuette of ivory on ivory,the logical last touchto an expansive splendorearned as wages for work done:one is not rich but poorwhen one can always seem so right.What can one do for them —these savagescondemned to disaffectall those who are not visionariesalert to undertake the silly taskof making people noble?This model of petrine fidelitywho “leaves her peaceful husbandonly because she has seen enough of him” —that orator reminding you,“I am yours to command.”“Everything to do with love is mystery;it is more than a day’s workto investigate this science.”One sees that it is rare —that striking grasp of oppositesopposed each to the other, not to unity,which in cycloid inclusivenesshas dwarfed the demonstrationof Columbus with the egg —a triumph of simplicity —that charitive Euroclydonof frightening disinterestednesswhich the world hates,admitting:

“I am such a cow,if I had a sorrow,I should feel it a long time;I am not one of thosewho have a great sorrowin the morningand a great joy at noon;”which says: “I have encountered itamong those unpretentiousprotegйs of wisdom,where seeming to paradeas the debater and the Roman,the statesmanshipof an archaic Daniel Websterpersists to their simplicity of temperas the essence of the matter: